The present invention relates to a paintball gun. More specifically, the present invention relates to a paintball loader that is mountable below the barrel of a paintball gun to sequentially feed a supply of stored paintballs to the firing chamber of the paintball gun.
The game of paintball has enjoyed great success in recent years and is a game in which two or more teams try to capture one another's flags. The players on each of the teams each carry a CO.sub.2 powered gun that shoots paintballs that are propelled by short bursts of the pressurized gas. Typically, paintballs are gelatin-covered, spherical capsules having a diameter of approximately 11/16 inch that contain a colored liquid. When a player is hit with a paintball from an opponent's gun, the paintball ruptures and leaves a colored mark on the hit player who then must leave the game.
As the game of paintball has grown in sophistication, semi-automatic paintball guns, guns that sequentially fire paintballs as fast as the trigger can be repeatedly pulled by the user, have become more prevalent. The high firing rate capability of semi-automatic paintball guns has necessitated the use of bulk loader devices in conjunction with such guns.
Typically, a bulk loader device includes a housing which is positioned above and slightly to one side of the paintball gun. The housing is adapted to internally store a relatively large quantity of paintballs (for example, 100-200 paintballs) and has a bottom outlet opening through which the stored paintballs can sequentially drop. A feed tube is connected to the bottom outlet opening of the housing and is connected to the paintball gun's hollow firing chamber.
During normal operation of the loader, paintballs drop through the bottom housing outlet opening, through the feed tube, and into the gun's firing chamber, such that the paintballs are gravity fed to the gun during firing. Paintball jams frequently occur within the loader housing during rapid sequential firing of the gun. These jams prevent the normal gravity delivery of paintballs downwardly through the housing outlet opening, with the result that the paintball stack contained in the feed tube can be totally depleted by several shots of the paintball gun.
In the past, clearing of such jams has required that the gun be forcibly shaken to dislodge the individual paintballs causing the jam within the loader housing. The need to dislodge the jammed paintballs is highly undesirable since it interrupts the user's ability to continually fire the gun.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,454 discloses a jam-free bulk loader for a paintball gun that includes an agitator positioned within the loader housing to clear any paintball jams that may occur within the housing. The loader of the '454 patent includes a sensor which determines whether the continuous stream of paintballs to the firing chamber of the gun has been interrupted. If the stream of paintballs has been interrupted due to a jam in the housing, the agitator rotates within the housing to clear the paintball jam and supply paintballs to the gun. The bulk loader in the '454 patent is mounted above the gun such that the paintballs are fed by gravity into the infeed elbow extending off one side of the gun.
While the prior bulk loaders have proven to be relatively effective in rapidly delivering paintballs to a gun for firing, the loaders of the prior art typically sit above the gun and rely on gravity to feed the supply of paintballs to the firing chamber of the gun. When this type of loader is used in paintball games, the rather large loader housing positioned above the gun can be cumbersome and provides a large target for the opposing team to hit. Additionally, since the supply of paintballs are gravity fed, the loader housing must be above the paintball gun, which limits the orientation of the gun during firing. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a paintball loader which can be positioned below the barrel of the gun while still being able to supply paintballs to the firing chamber at the required rate.